Anvic Developments has bought The Works serviced office centre in 
Manchester for an undisclosed sum.
The 21,0000 square feet complex is on the outskirts of the city in Ancoats and is now the company’s fourth serviced office complex in the North West. They will rename the building City View House and all the existing tenants will remain. The Burnley-based company acquired the building from Eddisons which was under instructions of the property’s LPA receiver. Property consultancies Drivers Jonas and Dawson Associates advised Anvic. (more…)
Plans to create an ambitious £75 million business quarter in West Bromich, West Midlands are set to push on this week as negotiations draw closer for the final development.
The All Saints Development will be the first to be built in the area since the 1970′s. It’s thought the development will create thousands of jobs, 270,000 square feet of office space, a 500 space multi-storey car park and attractive public space. Stoford Limited will develop the site at the junction of the A41 Expressway and Cronehills Linkway. Advantage West Midlands are providing £14 million towards the scheme. Sandwell Council’s regeneration chief is expected to make an announcement by the end of the week, possibly Thursday or Friday. (more…)
Interactive Ideas have announced plans to expand their Enfield HQ and have bought new office and training facilities close to their existing Enfield HQ.
In the past two years, the IT and technology distributor has doubled in size and achieved record sales of £16.2 million in the last financial year. The new office purchase will provide room to double their existing staff numbers and will provide an in-house training facility. It will also create a dedicated 20,000 square feet logistics and warehouse centre. As well as achieving record profitability, the firm was also named Red Hat EMEA Distributor Of The Year in March. (more…)
Three new tenants have signed to City and Northern and Robertson’s Baltic Place Scheme in Gateshead.
Santander, 1NG and NGi are the latest companies to sign up to leases at the 131,000 square feet office scheme at Gateshead Quays. The North of England Protecting & Indemnity Association became the first tenants when they signed up to 26,500 square feet last month (October). They took three floors of the Western Tower in the development at £18 per square foot. Santander has signed a 10 year lease for 4.200 square feet to house it’s corporate banking department on the ninth floor of the West Tower (more…)
Land Securities’ proposals for a 1 million square feet redevelopment of Arundel Great Court on Strand have been given the full go-ahead.
They received full planning permission at appeal last week. Westminster council had previously refused to give consent in February because they believed it would have a negative impact on historic views around the area. They were particularly concerned about the bridges over the river Thames and 18th century Somerset House. The scheme, designed by architects Horden Cherry Lee and Wilkinson Eyre, involves redeveloping one of its largest London assets. (more…)
German fund Commerz Real has struck a deal with Irish developer Ballymore to buy the development at 1 Snowhill in Birmingham for an estimated £124 million.
The office building, which has 250,000 square feet of office space, was put up for sale in September for £111 million – a yield of 7%. Commerz Real is rumoured to have agreed a price between £124 million and £128 million – a yield of at least 6.25%. The sale is the largest transaction in the city since the Carlyle Group paid £150 million in 2006 for Colmore Plaza. Interest in the property is said to have sky-rocketed in the last 2 to 3 weeks. Many financial experts have reported a recent surge in demand as a weight of money is chasing prime UK properties, of which there is a current shortage. (more…)
Regeneration experts in Derby are hopeful that office-space developments which ground to a halt in the recession will pick back up again in 2010.
Derby Cityscape, the urban regeneration company which is leading the £2 billion scheme, reported renewed interest from companies looking to move into office space in the city centre. John Cadwallader, Chief Executive of Derby Cityscape, said; “There are some firm inquiries now. I think we are getting more serious inquiries and people look more willing to commit. We are hopeful of some good news in the new year.” Several schemes were forced to stop work in the past year due to a lack of tenant interest. Developers were reluctant to finish the building as they would be subject to empty-building taxes. (more…)
The Federation of Small Businesses has opened an emergency fund for businesses which have been left devastated by last week’s floods in Cumbria, Lancashire and north-east Scotland.
The £500,000 Disaster Recovery Fund was set up to help businesses affected by natural disasters in the UK. The FSB is offering interest-free loans of £5,000 to help businesses carry on trading and repair the damage to premises.“The past 18 months have been difficult for FSB members up and down the country, so the last thing otherwise successful members need is unpredictable weather and flooding to damage their prospects,” said John Wright, National Chairman of the FSB. (more…)
One in four small and medium sized businesses are planning to take on more staff within the next 3 months according to new research out this week.
The Sage UK Omnibus report surveyed 2,400 small and medium sized business respondents drawn from Sage’s client base in October 2009. Despite the drop in the GDP for the third consecutive quarter and the UK still being in the grip of the recession, many SME’s are reporting a positive outlook for the future. The research also reported that nearly 70% of small businesses said the recession hadn’t bought them any closer to their customers. (more…)
British Land are eying up properties worth £2.5 billion following their first quarterly profits in over 2 years.
Chief Executive, Chris Grigg, said the property company had placed bids worth £500 million for shops and office space in an attempt to re-build their portfolio. He also said that they would spend another £2 billion on acquiring assets over the next 2 years. British Land’s biggest retail tenants are Sainsburys and Tesco and they now want to invest in more superstores as well as other property outside of it’s usual portfolio. Many believe this is the strongest hint yet that British Land believe the UK property market could be about to recover. (more…)
